"fly" = "hip" (or, if you prefer, "hep") -- a retraction

[George Thompson]

Jon Lighter asked me whether I was sure that the 1749 passage given
below read "fly" and not "sly" (with a long s).  This is a trap I am
wary of, but this time I got caught.  On re-examination, the first
letter looks like an "f", but the horizontal stroke pretty clearly is
no the left side of the rising stroke; it isn't a cross-stroke.  So it
is a long s, and the word is "sly".  Sorry about that.  These 18th C.
chaps must have had pretty sharp eyes.

In addition: the passage came from the sort of political slanging that
ordinarily I don't look at, but somehow the supposed "fly" caught my
eye.  I skimmed the essay to see whether there was any other slang
words in it, and all the rest was in the chastest vocabulary you could
wish for, so that "fly" would have been incongruous, which should have
occurred to me at the time.

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.

----- Original Message -----
From: George Thompson <george.thompson at nyu.edu>
Date: Monday, January 24, 2005 3:49 pm
Subject: "fly" = "hip" (or, if you prefer, "hep")

> Under "fly", adjective, HDAS discerns two related senses: sense 1a (=
> wide awake) *1724, *1821, *1850, &c. (all English); 1872 (US);
> sense 1b
> (= aware) *1811, *1812 (both English); 1839 (US)  (I abbreviate the
> definitions and leave out the supporting quotations, but we all sleep
> with HDAS on the nightstand, don't we?)
>
> Whichever sense the first of these two below goes under, it is a
> prettyneat antedating in the U. S.  The fact that it comes 50+
> years before
> the 2nd earliest English citation is all right, too.
>
> 1749:   That the fly Ones should not suspect you for a Courtier, you
> have been likewise very arch in giving us to understand, that you had
> been heretofore pleased to encourage and support the Party.
>        N-Y Gazette Revived, January 16, 1748-9, p. 1, col. 1
> [from a
> political diatribe, responding to last week's political diatribe]
>
> 1824:   The carriages, wagons, horsemen, and pedestrians, who
> seemed to
> make Coney Island their place of destination, amounted to a
> considerable number; the roads were lined and adorned with them in
> every direction; the regulars were numerous -- the knowing ones were
> up, and the downy ones were all fly.
> The Emerald, October 16, 1824, p. 109, cols. 1-2.  [a report on a
> prizefight]
>
> GAT
>
> George A. Thompson
> Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
> Univ. Pr., 1998, but nothing much lately.
>